A black and white print of a birch tree trunk with thin wispy branches.

Large Birch

Artist Alex Katz (American, born 1927)

Date2005

Mediumlinoleum cut on Hiromi Mulberrry heavyweight paper (60 mg)

DimensionsImage: 60 5/8 × 36 3/8 inches (154 × 92.4 cm)
Sheet: 63 × 38 1/4 inches (160 × 97.2 cm)
Framed: 65 3/4 × 40 3/4 × 1 1/2 inches (167 × 103.5 × 3.8 cm)

Credit LineKirk Varnedoe Collection, Telfair Museum of Art, Savannah, Georgia, Gift of the artist.

Object number2006.13

On View

Not on view

Copyright© 2023 Alex Katz / Licensed by VAGA at Artists Rights Society (ARS), NY The images and text contained on this page are owned by Telfair Museums or used by the Museum with permission from the owners. Unauthorized reproduction, transmission or display of these materials is prohibited with the exception of items deemed “fair use” as defined by U.S. and international copyright laws.Label TextThe son of Russian immigrants, Alex Katz was raised in Queens, New York. He studied at Cooper Union and at the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture of Skowhegan, Maine. Katz also taught at the New York Studio School, School of Visual Arts, Yale University and Pratt Institute throughout the 1960s. He was a progressive proponent of figurative art at a time when abstraction was being touted by the artistic avant-garde. Detached, non-specific, and often executed on a monumental scale, Katz’s canvases are flatly painted and make no attempt at create an illusion of three-dimensionality. His work is represented in the permanent collections of numerous distinguished institutions, including the Art Institute of Chicago; Brooklyn Museum of Modern Art; Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris; Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington DC; Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; Museum of Modern Art, New York; Tate Gallery, London; and the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York. Although Katz is best known for his work depicting the human figure, he has also created a number of pieces based on images in the natural world. Large Birch, in the Varnedoe Collection, is one such work, depicting a simplified, strongly graphic segment of a tree trunk.

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